Air Con

[leechaorui 2]

Thank you for your inputs. $5400 is the price Sing Power charges for 3 phase 60Am. If it is 100Am the price goes up to $9k plus hence I am questioning myself if I need 60Am or 100Am. I do not want to overprovide and end up spending unnecessarily. Any advice where I can look for help to calculate accurately my power requirements?

Secondly, can you kindly elaborate why we need a separate DB for each floor? Presently we have planned for 1 DB in the électric room' on the ground floor and it houses all electrical connections. This DB which is catered for 100Am costs $4600. Another reason why I am exploring 60Am because this means the DB will now cost less.

I think 60Amps is generally sufficient for normal house usage - air-con in rooms, normal fridges, etc.

I do not know your needs. If you have a big bungalow and you have the following items eg:

a. High Ceiling, Big Halls and need to air-con whole house

b. Has water fall feature and big fish pond, big swimming pool that require giant sized powered motor system

c. Super fridge (eg. those used in five star hotels to store food and cater to 3000 guests type)

d. Wine/ Beer Chiller that takes the space of one room (eg. those you saw on television advertisement)

For above cases or cases where you need very high electricity consumption, I think best to go for the 100Amps. If you are unsure of the electricity consumption, it is best to check with Licenced Electrical Worker to help you compute and recommend. Otherwise, safest to go for 100Amps. My place is not big and even with all 7 rooms air-con fully operating, all lights turn on, washing machine working, two fridges, turn on all TVs, etc.. I still can't hit the max capacity and so I go for 60 Amps.

For DB box, one at each level will help you to isolate problems to the level itself. You need not walk in the dark from 4th level to the ground floor when you have a short ciruit at the ground floor in the middle of the night. Usually, the kitchen area is most prone to short circuiting because of moisture or water leakage into electrical items.

Hope this clarifies.

[pantieileen 2]

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Edited October 12, 2011 by pantieileen

[twothumbs 0]

1)Do you have swimming pool & private lift?

Separate DB box for each floor. My aunt's SD with 3.5 floors has 4boxes, one on each floor. The rationale is that when power on a certain floor trips, it will not trip the other floors. Most of the time, power trips happen at night when everyone come home, on everything at the same time. When it happened at my place, 3storey terrace but 1DB box on the groundfloor, everything is gone, no lights etc then have to use torchlight down the stairs to troubleshoot.

I wired my new home like an office which uses LAN instead of wireless. Wireless isn't very reliable in houses as opposed to HDB. The signal drops drastically unless your modem is placed really in a central location.

thank you all. This has been extremely helpful

[bepgof 20]

The watt calculation gives you a "better picture" of what you required.

Some loads run on 3phase, eg 5HP aircon. Most home appliances run in single phase & the "power consumption" some expressed as VA, horse power, BTU, Watt. Have to convert all to watt and add all up. Rule of thumb, incoming breaker & cable has to size at 120% capacity, if all loads add up=100%.

May I know what are above calculations about? How do I calculate whether I require 3 phase 60 or 100 amp? Is it just simply adding the connected load of the various appliances?

[AnneY 0]

Hello TwoThumbs,

60 amps vs 100amps : I have induction hob, convection & steam ovens, steam generator (in shower area), swimming pool and my builder said 60amps is sufficient.

Profit in attendance : mine is 2% under my contract. The main contractor co-ordinates with the "specialists" such as the aircon supplier, works out the techincal issues (such as where to place the condenser units, where to run the concealed piping etc), scheduling etc, arranges delivery of the aircon etc.

[twothumbs 0]

Hello TwoThumbs,

60 amps vs 100amps : I have induction hob, convection & steam ovens, steam generator (in shower area), swimming pool and my builder said 60amps is sufficient.

Profit in attendance : mine is 2% under my contract. The main contractor co-ordinates with the "specialists" such as the aircon supplier, works out the techincal issues (such as where to place the condenser units, where to run the concealed piping etc), scheduling etc, arranges delivery of the aircon etc.

Great! This gives me confidence that we don't have to pay for 100amp. May I ask if yours if 3 phase?

[AnneY 0]

Yes, 3 phase.

BTW, i forgot to mention that I was told that if you have 100amp, your house will need to be certified by a registered electrician annually (i.e more cost).

[leechaorui 2]

Yes, 3 phase.

BTW, i forgot to mention that I was told that if you have 100amp, your house will need to be certified by a registered electrician annually (i.e more cost).

Thank you for sharing. I didn't know that for 100amps, the house needs to be certified by a LEW annually. Learn something from you today.

[twothumbs 0]

Yes, 3 phase.

BTW, i forgot to mention that I was told that if you have 100amp, your house will need to be certified by a registered electrician annually (i.e more cost).

Yes,I just learnt too that it cost about $100 annually to get LEW to certify it. I was told air con determines largely (besides induction hob and oven) the electricial requirement. I have 4 condensers and 7 fan coils, totalling 110,000 BTU. Dont mind if you can also let me know if you have around this number of air con or BTU so that I can be certain 60 AMP is sufficient for my house? Thanks!

[AnneY 0]

Yes,I just learnt too that it cost about $100 annually to get LEW to certify it. I was told air con determines largely (besides induction hob and oven) the electricial requirement. I have 4 condensers and 7 fan coils, totalling 110,000 BTU. Dont mind if you can also let me know if you have around this number of air con or BTU so that I can be certain 60 AMP is sufficient for my house? Thanks!

i have 5 condensers 9 fan coils totaling 180,000 BTU. However, perhaps the intended usage pattern is more important. We are not heavy users of aircon. For eg, we turn on aircon in living & dining only when we have guests. My kids sleep with aircon on 5-10% of the time only. One unit is in the guest room (no one occupies it) and one unit is in the walk-in wardrobe. It is very unlikely all will be turn on simultaneously.

[GMC 12]

1)Do you have swimming pool & private lift?

Separate DB box for each floor. My aunt's SD with 3.5 floors has 4boxes, one on each floor. The rationale is that when power on a certain floor trips, it will not trip the other floors. Most of the time, power trips happen at night when everyone come home, on everything at the same time. When it happened at my place, 3storey terrace but 1DB box on the groundfloor, everything is gone, no lights etc then have to use torchlight down the stairs to troubleshoot.

I wired my new home like an office which uses LAN instead of wireless. Wireless isn't very reliable in houses as opposed to HDB. The signal drops drastically unless your modem is placed really in a central location.

My DB located in my ground floor utility room has 3 zones for 3 different levels. It trips only the affected levels.

How often do we run LAN in our house? almost all equipments are wireless these days.

I run Wireless Printer, WiFi SIP phones on IP PBX, notebooks are all wireless, using 2 WDS access point on 1st and 3rd level, covers the entire house.

[pantieileen 2]

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Edited October 12, 2011 by pantieileen

[leechaorui 2]

wireless isn't fast enough for gaming and downloading movies 24/7

LAN is more idiot proof for old folks

Agree with you. I think useful to have a combination of wired and wireless. For simple websurfing, wireless is more convenient.

[GMC 12]

wireless isn't fast enough for gaming and downloading movies 24/7

LAN is more idiot proof for old folks

That's often related to poor WiFi setup and router management, thus hardwired cables are definitely more idiot proof.

[pantieileen 2]

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Edited October 12, 2011 by pantieileen